ANTI-SEMITE DISOWNED
The Lithuanian Freedom Union faction at Kaunas City Council has announced its
intention to disassociate itself from anti-Semitic statements made by the
factionís leader, MP Vytautas Sustauskas, on Swedish television.
(The Baltic Times, 01.02.2001, Baltic News Service)

HIT-MAN ACCUSEDYevgeny Savenko, a former Soviet security agent charged with genocide in
La tvia, again denied his guilt in a Supreme Court sitting on Feb. 6.
(The Baltic Times, 08.02.2001, Baltic News Service)

Killing Latvia slowly
The latest census shows that in 2000 there were 1,473,500 Latvians
living in Latvia. In 1935, there were 1,467,000. In the last 65 years the
Latvian nation has remained at the same strength despite having lost some
500,000 people in deportations.
(The Baltic Times, 08.02.2001, Jekabs Ziedars)

Case could be dropped against genocide
suspect
The chief prosecutor of the special investigations unit at the general
prosecutor 92s office, Rimvydas Valentukevicius, expressed regret on Feb. 2
that Nazi war crimes suspect Kazys Gimzauskas could not attend proceedings.
(The Baltic Times, 08.02.2001, BNS, VILNIUS)

KGB MAN FREEThe Latvian Supreme Court Feb. 7 resolved to reduce the punishment imposed
on Yevgeny Savenko, a former Soviet security agent charged with genocide in
Latvia, to a year and three months in prison - the period he has already
served.
(The Baltic Times, 15.02.2001, Baltic News Service)

Russians ask back Soviet veteransRepresentatives of the Russian diaspora at a meeting in Moscow called on
Russian President V.Putin to assume personal control over the protection of
Soviet war veterans being tried in the Baltic states for war crimes committed
during World War II.
(The Baltic Times, 08.03.2001, BNS, MOSCOW)

Chancellery candidate steps down over KGB
past
The nominated head of the Latvian presidentís chancellery, who supervised
KGB affairs in the Prosecutorís Office in the late 1980s, has asked
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga to withdraw his nomination, which she has
agreed to do.
(The Baltic Times, 22.03.2001, BNS, RIGA)

RAINIAI CASE
The Siauliai Area Court in northern Lithuania began hearings March 20 into the
case against Soviet NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) officer Petras Raslanas,
charged with committing genocide against Lithuanian citizens.
(The Baltic Times, 22.03.2001, Baltic News Service)

Calls for life imprisonment for ex-Soviet
officer
Prosecutors from the northern Lithuanian city of Siauliai have called for life
imprisonment in a case against Soviet NKVD officer Petr Raslan, who is charged
with genocide.
(The Baltic Times, 29.03.2001, BNS, SIAULIAI, Lithuania)

Sick Stalin-era criminal to stay in prisonA Latvian court on March 22 ruled that a former Stalin-era secret
policeman must remain in prison, despite pleas by prison doctors that he is
too sick.
(The Baltic Times, 29.03.2001, Nick Coleman, RIGA)

Court sentences Soviet butcher to life
On April 5, the Siauliai Area Court in northwest Lithuania issued a verdict
finding a former officer of the NKVD - the forerunner to the KGB - P.Raslanas,
guilty of genocide against Lithuanian civilians and sentenced him in absentia
to life in prison.
(The Baltic Times, 12.04.2001, Rokas M. Tracevskis, VILNIUS)

Suspected Nazi war criminal dies in Australia
Karlis Ozols, who has been the target of an investigation into Nazi war crimes,
died in an Australian nursing home two weeks ago and was cremated in a secret
ceremony in Melbourne, the Australian newspaper The Age reported on April 8.
(The Baltic Times, 12.04.2001, TBT staff, RIGA)

Victims of NKVD get no peaceBetween 1994 and 1997 in Tuskulenai Park, in the very heart of Vilnius,
archaeologists found the remains of more than 700 victims of Soviet terror.
(The Baltic Times, 17.05.2001, Rokas M. Tracevskis, VILNIUS)

Kalejs extradition one step nearer
Latvian prosecutors and the countryís Jewish community applauded an
Australian court ruling May 29 in favor of extraditing alleged Nazi war
criminal Konrads Kalejs to Latvia to stand trial on genocide charges.
(The Baltic Times, 31.05.2001, J. Michael Lyons, RIGA)

Remember the Jewish survivorsI am a non-Balt and a non-Jew. However, two causes have been with me for
most of my adult life. One was the struggle to break the silence in the West
about the right to freedom and independence for the three Baltic states.
(The Baltic Times, 07.06.2001, Per Ahlmark)

Baltics mark Soviet deportations
As Latvia prepared to honor the estimated 15,424 Latvian citizens deported by
Soviet forces on June 14, 1941, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said at a
conference in Riga that the treatment of deportees amounted to genocide.
(The Baltic Times, 14.06.2001, Nick Coleman, RIGA)

NATO urged to learn lessons of history
June 14 is the Day of Mourning and Hope in Lithuania. On this day, 60 years
ago, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians were rounded up and deported to
gulags or summarily executed by the Soviets.
(The Baltic Times, 21.06.2001, Rokas M. Tracevskis, VILNIUS)